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Can you answer these true and false questions on the rules

As established Rules Officials, we get lots of phone calls, e-mails and texts asking us Rules questions, both real-life questions and “what-if” questions. Oftentimes, the answers to the questions are revealed by pointing out misused or misunderstood terms and phrases. Take this little True-False quiz, and see how up-to-date your understanding is of current terms, Rules and situations. Let’s go…

1. True or False: The penalty for a lost ball or ball out of bounds is two strokes.

2. True or False: Your regular Saturday morning group consisting of you and three friends playing in the weekly stroke play club tournament is a foursome.

3. True or False: If your ball is in an unmarked area that you think you should get relief from, you can drop and play a provisional ball along with your original ball, and ask the Committee afterward if taking relief was OK.

4. True or False: Tiger takes a practice swing on the tee. He comes a little too close to the ball he’s teed up, accidentally catches part of the ball, and it caroms at a 45-degree angle into the rough 40 yards away. He is now lying 1.

5. True or False: A pond with red lines around it is a Water Hazard.

6. True or False: Lexi and her opponent Nelly are in the fairway. Lexi’s ball is 120 yards from the hole, and Nelly’s ball is 130 yards from the hole. Nelly has the honor.

7. True or False: Bubba and Jack are in a stroke-play playoff for the championship of the U.S. Open. Bubba is Jack’s opponent.

8. True or False: Juli’s ball is on the putting green. She marks and lifts her ball, replaces it with her favorite “putting ball,” and makes a stroke at it. Juli has played a Wrong Ball.

9. True or False: Collin accidentally touches his ball in play and it moves back and forth noticeably, but it comes to rest in its original position. Collin incurs a one-stroke penalty for moving his ball.

10. True or False: Justin hits his drive, and it goes into the bushes approximately 240 yards out. Thinking it might be lost, he plays a provisional ball and hits it about 200 yards. Before going to look for his original ball, he plays another stroke with his provisional ball when he arrives at it. The provisional ball is now the ball in play, and the original ball is lost.

OK. Let’s make the scoring easy. Every one of the above statements or scenarios is false. Let’s take a look at each one:

1. The penalty for OB or lost ball is one stroke and distance. “Distance” means you have to replay again from where the previous stroke was played, so now you lie 3 instead of 1 (assuming you had played from the tee). It seems like two strokes, but the actual penalty is one stroke.

2. By definition a “foursome” a match where two players play against two others, with each side playing one ball and alternating shots. The “Saturday morning group” is about as accurate a term as there is to describe you and your pals.

3. In this situation, you are playing a “second ball”, not a provisional ball. A “provisional ball” is a ball played to save time in case your original ball might be lost (outside a Penalty Area) or may be out of bounds.

4. On the tee, the ball is not yet in play. A “stroke” is the “forward movement of the club with the intention of fairly striking at and moving the ball.” By definition, this was not a stroke, so he was entitled to go and pick up his ball and re-tee it without penalty. (If this situation had happened when the ball was in play, he would have incurred a penalty stroke and would have had to replace the ball.)

5. The term “Water Hazard” went out with the 2019 Rules of Golf revision. It’s now obsolete, and no longer a golf term. The correct term now is “Penalty Area.”

6. The “honor” only applies to who plays first from the tee. Otherwise, it’s merely “who’s away” and is entitled to play first.

7. The term “opponent” is only used in match play. The term for other players in a stroke-play competition is “competitor” or “player.”

8. Juli has not played a Wrong Ball. She has merely substituted a ball improperly. It’s now the ball in play, and she has incurred a one-stroke penalty under Rule 6.3b.

9. Collin’s in luck, because by the definition of “ball moved”, his ball has not moved. It has merely wobbled, or oscillated. According to the Rules, a ball has “moved” only if it “…leaves its position and comes to rest in any other place.” Also, he incurs no penalty for touching his ball, because it was accidental.

10. You can hit a provisional ball as many times as you like as long as you don’t make a stroke with the provisional ball from a point nearer the hole than where the original ball is likely to be lost or OB. If you do, that’s when it becomes the ball in play and the original ball is lost.

Don’t worry, the Golf Grammar and Usage Police won’t be watching over you. But, hey, a little extra knowledge never hurt anybody! Enjoy your summer!